Byron Beach Vacation Day 1: Back roads to Grafton, beachwalking in Yamba, jetty bike ride in Ballina

Friday morning we started out our vacation to Byron Bay.  It was a cold and frosty morning, and absolutely beautiful.  The first time we drove east out of Armidale we were amazed at how green everything was, but on this particular morning it looked like we were viewing the world through a desaturated filter.  The golden grassy hills were subdued with frost and the clear sky was one of those cold, pale blues.

Our first stop was about an hour down Waterfall Way: Ebor Falls.  It was absolutely quiet: just us and the tinyest of tiny birds running around on the ground.  Somehow, they kind of looked like chipmunks.  The upper falls were much more picturesque than the lower falls, with a better view out over the valley, but the trees at the lower falls were somehow magical to me.

Lower Ebor Falls

Upper Ebor Falls

The road that branches off toward Grafton is windy and steep, but passing through National Parks is really beautiful. We passed through Nymboida and saw the sign for turnoff to The Museum of Interesting Things--Russell Crowe's collection of stuff--but did not stop.  Maybe next time.  (Or maybe not.)  There's not much around there besides National Parks and sheep or cattle stations.  Nymboida is a tiny community; it's really hard for me to imagine growing up in such a place.  I can only compare this part of Australia to Wyoming or Montana, it's so incredibly empty.

It became much greener as we left the Tablelands

The Clarence River

Along our entire trip we noticed there has been a lot of road construction.  I figure they must save it all for the winter.  It makes sense, in Austraila--summer is too hot, there are less vacationers and travelers, and it's not like you have to worry about snow or other inclement winter weather.  The mornings are cold up here in the Tablelands, but we saw one construction crew had a campfire going on the side of the road to warm up by.

The highway doesn't really go through Grafton but rather skirts around it.  Soon on our way to the sister cities of Yamba/Iluka, driving by the serene Clarence River (so calm it looks like a lake that stretches for miles and miles) and coming up to sugarcane fields.  We ate our sandwiches at an oceanside park in Yamba along Angourie Beach and took a walk out to Angourie Point.  Lots of beautiful adan trees, or whatever the non-Japanese non-Okinawan name for this plant is.  To me, it will always firstly be adan, not Pandanus odoratissimus, not thatch screw pine.

Perfect view for a picnic in Yamba

Sandy beach looking south from Angourie Point

Rocks and adan looking north.

More adan. (This photo looks crooked and I was going to straighten it,
but I think it's bit of an optical illusion as the horizon's actually straight.)

From Yamba we drove on, stopping at a scenic overlook to watch some paragliders, to our next destination of Ballina.  Ballina is possibly most notable for the fact that the Las Balsas rafts landed there (were towed in) in 1973 after crossing the Pacific from Ecuador.  We saw one of the rafts at the Ballina Naval and Maritime Museum and its sail painted by Salvadore Dali, godfather to Vital Alsar, the head of the expedition.  It was actually indescribably cool.  Besides the Martime Museum, Ballina also has a notable Big Prawn.  Possibly the Big Prawn is more famous.

Pretty unassuming Ballina Naval & Maritime Museum

Turns out the Berlingo is good for something--we were able to put our bicycles in the back to bring on this trip.  We took our bikes out and rode out along the jetty, watched some surfers, took some pictures and biked back to the setting afternoon sun.  On our way out of town we stopped at the Big Prawn.  Of all things, it's in a Bunnings parking lot (equivalent to Home Depot or Lowe's).  Maybe disrupted some customers leaving the parking lot.. but only because they were polite and wouldn't drive in front of us while we were taking a picture.

Looking back to Ballina from out on the jetty

 

Loading up the Berlingo

The Big Prawn: it's pretty big.

From Ballina we drove to Byron.  It's not too far from Ballina to Byron Bay via the Pacific Highway--roughly 30 or 40 minutes.  Except I missed the exit and we had to pull what would be a Michigan left turn (Aussie right turn?).  Thank goodness we didn't have to wait for the next exit, because it was 15 km away or so.  We found our hostel no problem--the Byron Bay Beach Resort, checked and settled in, and took our bikes into town in search of some dinner.

The BBBR is pretty much right on the Belongil beach, a little bit outside of town, and the night sky was the most bright and amazing night sky I have ever seen.  Our whole weekend was a bit breezy, and it was incredibly nostalgic going along a dark road with nothing but the sound of the ocean and the wind--felt like being in Motobu on Okinawa Hontou all over again.  (Or maybe Yoron when it was a little more breezy, with typhoon 21 coming our way (possibly to strand us on the island for two weeks.))  I kept thinking we'd see hermit crabs crossing the road or if we when down a road we might find an izakaya for some umi-budou or inoshishi, or better yet, some Orion biiru...

Unfortunately we left our map of the town in our room and the address for the place at which we wanted to find our dinner came up erroneously on google maps, so after a lot of wandering around the same few blocks we ended up skipping Cafe Oska for fish and chips (and prawn and chips) at a restaurant called Fishmongers.  We also got half a dozen Sydney rock oysters.  I didn't like it.. so Reid ate the other five.  We wandered a little more after and stopped in a pub for a middy and a pint; facing each other and opposite ends of the room, Reid watched footy and I watched rugby.  Neither of us understand how either of those sports work.

Oysters at Fishmongers

That's pretty much the gist of it.  I wanted to put twice as many pictures up with this post, so maybe I'll do a supplementary post later.  (More likely I'll procrastinate and eventually forget about it.)  I'll try to post a Saturday recap tomorrow.

Edit: Here's a little map to illustrate our travels for our "northern" winter vacation.  (We'll have a real northern winter vacation in August, when we go to the Whitsundays.)